Answers lie in the middle

Wednesday

Dec 26, 2012 at 3:56 AMDec 26, 2012 at 4:40 PM

National Rifle Association spokesman Wayne LaPierre is wrong in arguing school safety simply comes down to posting armed guards and taming the violence Hollywood has infused into movies and television program.

In finally responding Friday to the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School, the NRA chief executive officer refused to concede the broader role gun control should and must play in protecting our nation's young.

By the same token, those who rejected LaPierre's suggestions out of hand are also blind to the wide-raging discussion that needs to take place.

“The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun,” LaPierre told a news conference a week after 26 students and teachers were gunned down in the Connecticut school.

As a last resort, he may be right. And that is why local school boards need to have that discussion. Many schools already have police in classrooms under the School Resource Officer Program. As noted by one law enforcement website, the main goal of the SRO is to prevent juvenile delinquency by promoting positive relations between youth and law enforcement. The notion that greater emphasis be put on law enforcement and protection in the wake of Sandy Hook is not without merit.

But that is only a starting point, not the be-all and end-all as the NRA would have it.

Guns need to be kept out of the hands of felons and the mentally ill. Due to a Supreme Court decision, state's cannot be forced to share the names of those deemed mentally ill. That should be changed. So too should the ease with which guns can be sold at guns shows. With today's technology instant background checks should be made available to screen potential purchasers with national and statewide data bases.

Lapiere may be right, that there are still going to be ways around such laws. But that is no excuse for the NRA to resist tougher screening procedures.

But those on the gun control side of the debate also need to let go of there extreme ideology.

In recent commentary, U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., made the case.

“A post-Newtown examination of our gun laws would be the country's first such effort since the Supreme Court's 2008 decision in D.C. v. Heller, which struck down the District of Columbia's handgun ban and affirmed an individual's constitutional right to bear arms. The case, decided by the court's conservative bloc, was originally viewed as a setback for advocates of gun safety. But embracing the ruling could actually create a new paradigm for gun control.”

Schumer continued: “The gun debate of the past two decades has devolved into a permanent tug-of-war between the National Rifle Association (NRA) and advocates of gun safety. One side has viewed the Second Amendment as absolute; the other has tried to pretend that it doesn't exist. The result is a failure to find any consensus, even as one mass shooting after another underscores the need for sensible reform.

Schumer may be onto something in concluding: “Heller told the two sides that they were each only half-right: The right to bear arms is constitutionally guaranteed, but reasonable limitations are allowed.”

Up until Heller there was a real fear that shootings like Sandy Hook could give hard-liners the ability to confiscate guns from law abiding citizens. That no longer being the case, the time is ripe for the NRA and its hard-left opponents to come together and work on solutions.

As Schumer concludes on behalf of his liberal brethren: “The gun issue will remain thorny, but Heller points the way toward a possible compromise, under a new paradigm. All of us — especially progressives — should embrace it.”